Market manipulation has become a common phrase in the world of crypto. South Koreans are the latest to be affected by the massacres of market manipulation. The South Korean authorities, however, aren’t far behind as they took down a prominent exchange that engaged in market manipulation over the last year.
South Korean Authorities Shut Down Market Manipulating Crypto Exchange
The popularity of the crypto-verse has grown by a huge majority and the value of its market follows suit. Scammers and hackers across the globe view this as a major point of attraction and dive into the industry to pocket some easy money. Regulators and law enforcement have been working towards busting crime pertaining to the crypto-verse. A recent incident in South Korea is a clear example of the same.
A local news portal reported that the Seoul police had taken down, Coinbit, a cryptocurrency exchange that formulated a market manipulation scheme. The Chairman, Choi Moi along with two other executives of the exchange were nabbed by the police for dwelling into market manipulation over the course of several months. The news portal reported that the executives had bagged over 100 billion won by buying and selling the crypto asset around the same time. This action was called wash trading and about 99% of the crypto exchange’s activities were executed through wash trading.
The Coinbit officials had even set up a ghost account to meddle with the prices of the assets and accelerate the volume of the transactions. This took place from August 2019 all the way up to May 2020.
The South Korean police took this exchange down on 26 August 2020. The Coinbit had an office in Gangnam-gu where the police searched and sealed the place following the information about the scam that the execs of the exchange were running. The prosecutors of South Korea have reportedly been gearing up for a case against the men behind the Coinbit market manipulation.